A Leo's Curious Life !

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

FALL is here whahoooo !And I'm ready for some lovely fall treats!!! . When I think of the beautiful fall season ,I think "Pumpkin & Sweet Potato" ohh so yummy .Sooooo in this post I will be doing a sweet potato dish and my next post will be pumpkin dish . The inspiration to this most delicious sweet potato casserole after a real good friend of mine asked me to bring a dish to her Baby shower. Shout out to Kimberly :) love you girl. I searched for a recipe that had less sugar and also less processed sugars. I found this particular recipe on Skinnytaste.com . Now Skinnytaste has lots of delicious recipes that are low in fat and low in sugar. While making this dish ,I had to tweak some of the ingredients to get the recipe to my liking.So what's the verdict of this delicious dish? Ummm Amazingly Scrumptious !!! My friend wanted the recipe right away( I also made her another dish later on after the shower). I shared with co- workers and they also wanted the recipe. Now you can see why I'm blogging it:),so let's get started

1) Cut sweet potatoes into large chunks; boil potatoes in a large pot covered with water until potatoes are soft if pierced with a fork. (30-40min) just keep checking

2) Drain and return to the pot.

3) Preheat oven to 400°.

4) Mash the sweet potatoes with a masher or fork

5) Add in raisins, agave, pineapple, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, brown sugar and nutmeg. Mix all ingredients in , check to see if you like the flavor , add more spices and sugar to your liking .

6) Lightly spray a pie dish or,casserole dish or even individual ramekins with oil, spoon in sweet potatoes.**** I put my sweet potatoes in the fridge to cool due to a party i had the next day. The next day I added spiced nuts and Marshmallows.

<<( Spiced layer Part 2 )>>Add all ingredients spices and sugar in a small Baggie & shake then add it to top of your sweet potatoes dish, spreading it all around covering the top layer. Just a nice thin layer. Try to save some of those spices for your nuts.

*** (My dish wasn't hot so I don't know how it works with potatoes steaming hot:)

<<Spiced Nuts Part 3>>

Use left over spices from spiced layer 2 , if none is left redo spice layer and add nuts , save

Put back into refrigerator with foil . Pull out next day or when needed to be cooked and add spiced nuts and Marshmallows

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Hello friends!!!! How is everyone doing? Well i hope everyone had a great weekend !!!

Today I'm going to share some recipes for "Chocolate Pumpkin Cups" and "ChocolateAvocado Cookies " I tricked my best friend into cooking with me ,so that I could take pictures hahahhahahaah . She was a great sport and I enjoyed cooking with her. We had a good time and we leaned a lot about different textures of vegan baking . Here are the recipes Ohhhh and my bestieee :)

{Vegan Chocolate Avocado Cookies}

http://www.twopeasandtheirpod.com/vegan-chocolate-avocado-cookies/

Yield: 2 dozen cookiesPrep Time: 10 minutesCook Time: 10 minutes

Rich and chocolaty cookies that are made with avocado! These vegan cookies are divine! You will never know there is no butter in these babies!

ingredients:

1 1/4 cups all-purpose Gold Medal flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

2/3 cup Dutch processed cocoa

1/4 cup coconut oil

1/4 cup mashed avocado

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/3 cup almond milk

1/2 cup vegan chocolate chips

directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a large baking sheet with a Silpat baking mat or parchment paper and set aside.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and cocoa. Set aside.

3. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the coconut oil, avocado, and sugars together until creamy and smooth, about 2-3 minutes. Add in the vanilla extract.

4. With the mixer on low, add half of the flour mixture. Add the milk and

then add the remaining dry ingredients. Mix until the flour disappears. Stir in the chocolate chips.

5. Form cookie dough into tablespoon balls and place on prepared baking sheet, about 2 inches apart. Slightly flatten the cookies with the palm of your hand or a spatula. Bake cookies for 10 minutes, or until setaround the edges,

but still soft in the center. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for two minutes. Transfer to a wire cooling rack and cool completely.

I'm back !!! Sorry for being gone so long :( but the good news is that I'm back :)

If you didn't know I'm a teacher yes yes ! So part of our curriculum is nutrition and we get to do lots of actives with food. Well when all the activities are done the teachers are stuck with left over items. Lucky for me I have neighboringteacher who likes to share, she sent me home with with about 11 apples form a activity done in her class . A Shout out to Miss Mickey :) !!!!!! So I thought to myself what to do with these ? Well I did what I always do , go blog searching hahahaha. So many creative people and so many great Ideas and they share it all in there blog Well I came across this wonderful blog page called "Paleo Mama" She had a wonderful recipe for cinnamon applesauce , which is my favorite type of applesauce :) http://thepaleomama.com/2013/09/homemade-applesauce-coconut-sugar-sage-cinnamon/I also was attracted to this recipe due to two key ingredients: Lemon & Coconut sugar yum yum :) Here some pics and the recipe , Enjoyyyyyy

Ingredients:

6lb apples – a mixture of different kinds are best but not necessary(I used the 11 apples)

6TB of lemon juice or juice of 2 fresh-squeezed lemons( I used 3 lemons and it was pretty tarty )

5)~Add about an inch of water to the bottom of the pot; just enough to prevent the apples from sticking.

6)~Cover the pot and bring to a boil over high heat. Once boiling, reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, covered, stirring occasionally, until the apples are soft, about 20 minutes. Then uncover the pot and cook for another 5 minutes.

7)~Take your immersion blender (if you don’t have one, you can use a blender or food processor) and smooth the apple mixture to your liking. You can leave it however chunky you want.

8)~Now bring the applesauce to a boil then reduce the heat to medium-low and cook while stirring. You will see the sauce start to thicken.

9)~This is where you stir in the cinnamon .

10)~If freezing: let the applesauce cook, then spoon into freezer bags and freeze! Should be good for a year or more in the freezer.

Sunday, July 21, 2013

Alight!!!! :) So I had that pleasure to spend the day with my best friend on her birthday :) . Whahooooo Happy Birthday Katie !!!!!!! She chose to have tea at Chado Tea Garden in Pasadena. Here we were taught about the many different types of teas , who knew of the many types!! Yes black tea, white tea, Oolong tea, tea bricks, jasmine tea, chai tea etc...... So I learned a lot even thought I was a poor student :). Enough with the tea and on to the shopping ! Shopping was great :) I scored some cute dresses and katie scored nada yup nada thing. Here are some pictures of our day :)

Love this shop and this shot!!!

This was just hilarious :) tea? Really?

:) Here we are at the tea room :) I sure love my bestie

~Now that I shared my the day with you ,let's move on to the up cycling projects and homemade gifts made. Yaayyy!!!!

HOMEMADE GIFTBOX

Here I made a gift box made of a Real Simple magazine pages, flower, tape and a random shoe

box hanging around my house . This process was petty easy I crumbled the paper and basically wrapped the show box. Then I went out side and picked a rose from the garden and taped it on. I would find smaller flowers seeing they would be easier to tape or glue on. This a pretty

simple design and I'm sure people can get a little more creative then I did. Ohhh and I

filled this box full of goodies that I knew she would love. Ok on to the next one

HOMEMADE COLLAGE GIFTBOX

This box was a bath and body works box that I just covered with a ULTA ad. This was easy to do and the ULTA ads are always bursting with amazing colors and products. I found out later that my friend loves to look at these ads., So it made this gift box worth giving.I taped all the pieces that I wanted on the the box and Bam!!!!!It came out pretty good. Now on to the aug scrub

HOMEMADE PEPPERMINT SUGAR SCURB

If anyone knows me , knows I love sugar scrubs and I love to make them. So I figured I would make some for my bestee and some for my coworkers. It's pretty simple all you need is White or brown Sugar, olive oil ,coconut oil, peppermint essential oil, and some grape seed oil.

VEGAN CHOCOLATE PEANUT-BUTTER CUPS

Alright and for the GRAND FINALLY !!!!! I made homemade chocolate peanut- butter cups and boy were they tasty . here is the reciper

Line mini muffin tins with paper liners. Fill each muffin tin about halfway to three-fourths of the way full with the peanut butter mixture (it will seem very runny). Next, scoop a bit of chocolate and top each liner with chocolate mixture. Place muffin tins in freezer until firm (this only took 15-20 minutes for me). Enjoy these "treats" straight from the freezer! Store either in the freezer or the refrigerator...they will become a puddle if you leave them out (especially in Arizona!). YUM! Go make them now! For the record, my kids were crazy about these!

*Tip: Place muffin tins with just the peanut butter mixture in the freezer for 5-10 minutes before scooping on the chocolate layer to avoid the chocolate sinking to the bottom of the mixture.

Saturday, July 6, 2013

Hello friends ,
I thought it was time that I shared a Vegan recipe :) Whahoooooo!!!!

I have a great friend who convinced to change my diet so naturally , I ventured off into the Vegan and Gluten -Free world. I first experimented with three different recipes for vegan chocolate chip cookies and those were horrible.I found this particular recipe and fell head over heels for it.. After finding the perfect chocolate chip cookies recipe. I started getting a little more serious and explored the vegan world a little more extensively.I have come to the conclusion that that Vegan world can be a bit crazy but once you sort thru all the info you find that its not all that bad. PETA is a good place to start

Why the sudden interest in Vegan baking ?:) Ohhhhhhh well, It comes from me being lactose intolerant. I wanted to eat a dessert that I could enjoy and wouldn't bring about a upset stomach. So I began my journey.

Alight lets get to baking :) !
These cookies are delicious and will make you think twice about eating non vegan cookies . ------First off this lovely recipe comes from the blogger :http://trans-planted.com/vegan-chocolate-chip-cookies/

Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup granulated sugar( I used Agava )-

2/3 cup vegetable oil( I used coconut oil ) -

1/4 cup almond or soy milk (I used coconut milk )-

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups all-purpose flour(I used the unbleached flour)-

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

3 ounces vegan chocolate chips yields two dozen

** Now I
added 1/2 cup of walnuts to add that chocolate and nut combination that I
crave so much. I also added Agave,coconut oil and coconut milk in the
place of other ingredients .

——–

Preheat oven to 350°F. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the brown sugar, white sugar, oil, and soy milk for several minutes until well incorporated. The resulting mixture will look like a smooth caramel sauce. Stir in the vanilla.In a small mixing bowl, mix together the dry ingredients: flour, baking soda, and salt. Gently add and mix the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients in the large mixing bowl. If the dough is not stiff enough to hold its shape, add more flour one tablespoon at a time (although I had no trouble with mine). Fold in the chocolate chips.

Drop cookies by the tablespoon onto a baking sheet, spacing the dough 2 inches apart. Cook for 8-9 minutes, or until lightly browned on the edges.
Enjoy and Share :)

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Hello Guys&Dolls here is a new recipe!!!!!! I am in love with these tasty cookies (Gluten-Free Double Chocolate Cherry Cookies). I made these cookies for a friend on her birthday and she just adored them:), I snuck a few for me before I gave them up lol.Now this recipe comes from the book

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

*Welcome to my 1st blog entry :)Today I'm going to post a delicious gluten free Lemon Bar recipe. <<A little about Gluten-free/Celiac Disease<< This type of diet is caused by Celiac Disease which causes the body to reject gluten.(http://www.celiac.com/)~I don't suffer from Celiac disease but I was looking for new ways to bake treats . So after "pintresting" I came across Vegan and Gluten-free desserts . Now lucky for me I have a wonderful friend who introduced me to both types of baking . Gluten-free baking became interesting once I found out how many different types of baking flours were available to bake with .It's quite interesting :) after you experiment with a few different type of flours. You come to find what works well for you:) !!Now What types of flours our out there you may ask ... Hmmmmmm

Directions:1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 9×9 baking dish and set aside.2. Pulse all crust ingredients (from almond flour to kosher salt) in a food processor until combined. The mixture should resemble cookie dough.3. Bake crust about 15-20 minutes. Edges will brown.4. Meanwhile, whisk together all lemon layer ingredients (from eggs to oat flour).5. When the crust is done baking alone, remove and pour the mixed lemon layer on top.6. Bake for another 20 minutes. A knife placed in the center will come out clean when the bars are done. Let cool completely and dust with powdered sugar. Enjoy. Store in refrigerator

To make oat flour, just grind gluten free oats in a food processor or blender until it resembles flour.

About Me

Hello and Welcome to my Blog!I am very excited to share with you some of my passions that make my life complete! My passions include baking, photography, reading ,listening to music , checking out art museums ,movies and to try new things. So come on and join me, leave a comment , suggest some recipes or activity :) This Blog will allow me to share picture ,recipes, pictures and opinions with people who are curious about what I am up to. Enjoy